


Walking The World

by Snow



Category: Firefly
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Religion Changes, Character of Color, Community: au_bingo, Gen, Loss of Faith, non-canonically Muslim Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-29
Updated: 2010-06-29
Packaged: 2017-10-10 07:53:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/97387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snow/pseuds/Snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short AU where Mal was Muslim.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walking The World

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the AU_bingo square of Alternate History: Personal life changed.
> 
> Inspired by the Dark_Agenda recebending challenge, even if it didn't end up fitting that guideline.

Malik ibn Felak bint Imad ibn Rehan had spent over twenty years praying in the direction that all the modern scholars agreed might possibly be Mecca. It had been six years since he'd even thought about doing it, but he still subconsciously found the agreed-upon direction every time he landed on a planet, and he was more aware of it when he was on Persephone than any other place.

Mal strode through the crowd on Persephone, trusting Jayne and Zoe to keep pace behind him. Persephone had been the first planet he'd gone to after the war with the Alliance had ended, after it was clear there wasn't a Shadow for him to return to. He'd spent two months there, and he'd place wagers that if he passed the right person they would remember him as the boy who'd come to the Al Qa'ed Ibrahim Mosque, requesting that Janazah prayers be recited for his mother and for Shadow.

Shadow was a ghost planet now, but it had always been quiet. Mal might be one of just a dozen people to whom the loss of Shadow truly mattered, and once he would have placed bets on being the only Muslim, before he'd decided he couldn't be one anymore.

So Mal had ended up leading the Persephone congregation through Janazah. It had been the last time he'd set foot in a Mosque, because the fact was, the prayers felt unbearably hollow. He had always found solace in his faith, but it seemed that needing it wasn't a good enough basis. After all, he had to believe too, and though he had tried, for his mother's sake if nothing else, he just couldn't manage that anymore.

Mal always walked through the streets of Persephone half-hoping someone from Al Qa'ed Ibrahim would call out to him, and half-fearing it. Sometimes he thought the only thing he needed was for someone else to want him to pray, and then maybe the meaning would return.

No one recognized him, or if they did they chose not to call out.

* * *

Mal kept finding himself drawn into conversations with the Shepherd, against his conscious will. In his younger years Mal would have enjoyed sparring with someone with the view of religion that Book seemed to have, but those years were long gone. Now Mal just found himself irritated by the Shepherd. The Shepherd seemed like a man who wanted to challenge everyone's view of religion, and Mal really didn't want to get into that. Not with a Christian, and someone who had lived too sheltered to ever experienced the loss Mal had.

He and Book didn't have the same starting ground when it came to religion, let alone finishing point. This fact was actually a little disappointing to Mal, who rather wanted someone with whom he could thrash out the actual points of contention, rather than these vagaries.

Mal snapped out something about God not being welcome on his boat, and walked off to find Kaylee. Prayer wouldn't keep his ship together, but that girl had done a pretty good job of it so far.

**Author's Note:**

> Usually I have a standard message that I do welcome constructive criticism, but I just wanted to say that that particularly goes for this story.


End file.
